1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a separating device for dough pieces or bakery products provided with                an inlet portion for delivering a plurality of dough pieces,        a separation unit for separating the dough pieces delivered,        an outlet portion for individually discharging the dough pieces separated from one another.        
2. Background Art
Such separation devices are known as they are obviously in use at present. Individual items to be baked, especially dough pieces, tend to stick together if they are in contact with one another. In addition, the dough pieces tend to stick to the components used for their conveyance. Although there are many different solutions for separating a plurality of dough pieces, i.e. for conveying a predetermined number of dough pieces in a controlled, sequential manner, the known separating devices have not yet satisfactorily solved the problems related to the aforedescribed stickiness. In consequence, it is not possible to automatically deliver a predetermined number of dough pieces with sufficient reliability, i.e. to deliver exactly the desired number. Certain applications where the aforesaid exactness is crucial can therefore not be automated using the known separating devices. Such an application is e.g. the numerically exact charging of a baking oven which is provided with receptacles for a predetermined number of dough pieces. In other applications, the counting inaccuracies related to the drawbacks of the known separating devices always require a certain excess of dough pieces. If e.g. dough pieces, which can e.g. be deep-frozen or partially frozen (partially defrosted), are to be packed in packing drums containing e.g. 30 dough pieces each, the known separating devices produce packing drums which always contain at least 30, but as a rule 31 to 34 dough pieces. Naturally, the production of such packing drums involves higher costs than are incurred if exactly the required number of dough pieces can be delivered. In addition, such packing drums containing different numbers of dough pieces cannot be used for applications where it is crucial that exactly a predetermined number of dough pieces be delivered by each packing drum.